Spectrum 13Sandy Hiortdahl

Frankie's face is pale and he's
hardly breathing. Nothing has scared me
this much since I was a boy and my father spilled his tractor over the creek
ravine. And it's the same kind of
fear—you sit and wait for the experts to decide it’s this or that or something
else, and there's not a damn thing you or anyone else can do. You wait.
You pray off and on, even if you don't believe in such things. And you remember. Frankie once said that he wrote stories to
chase off “lurkers,” the fears and memories that haunted him every day. Way back then, I thought science was the
better answer, that the logical progression through facts chased away
lurkers. But science, here in the
hospital with its tubes and blipping machines, gives no solace: I get that
now. I get why Frankie always looked at
me with his eyebrows high on his head when I’d say such things. We were kids, right, and we thought we knew
it all. Now, there’s a bandage across
his forehead and a spot of blood has seeped through, bright, redder than you’d
think, somehow.
So I'm
sitting here, hoping he'll wake up and say, “Sport, damn it, my head feels
worse than those mornings-after we'd mix vodka and grapefruit juice, gallon for
gallon. You remember?” I remember.
I might remind him it was worse when we used Hawaiian Punch. And then the time when midterms were the next
day and Frankie wrote that Einstein’s theory of general relativity was “a
scientific idea suggesting that everything in the universe is related,
generally.” Man, how we laughed when you
told us that day—God, more than twenty years ago, now—and then asked who’d
brought the Hawaiian Punch. How could it
be twenty years? It’s like somebody’s
sick idea of a joke.
The
hospital smells of ammonia and alcohol, but something more as well. I’m used to a science lab, but here there’s
this other odor, like you can actually smell the illnesses and the stress
here. When I got here, they asked me if
I'm family. “Brothers,” I said. I don’t try to reason with institutions about
their arbitrary distinctions. I came in,
and his eyes were glossy from pain-killers and he said, “To hell with this,
Dave,” and then, “Get outta here, man.”
He repeated it as he faded in and out, “To hell with this,” and “Go on,
get out.” I sat with my hands on my
knees and talked. I said anything. I don’t even remember what I said, but I
don't think he heard me, anyway.
He
wrecked his Coke-can red 1967 Mustang just after noon. I'd been in
town about twenty minutes, long enough to cruise past the alma mater and land
myself at Sharon's
Diner, where I heard it over the scanner: pedestrian/vehicle collision at the
college. When they described the car, I
knew it was Frankie’s, though he'd told me he wasn't coming to this twentieth
reunion. “The Big Two-Oh,” he laughed
over the phone, “No Way, Sport. Show up and give Liz a big wet one for me,
right on the lips, even if she’s brought her idiot husband.”
The
girl he hit is down the hall. When I got
here, various college types paced the corridor.
One of them glared at me, no doubt thinking it was Frankie's fault,
which is natural, I guess. We'd have
been the same way, right? For the
college kids, it’s still ‘them against the world,’ and they don’t realize that
tomorrow, the seniors at least will suddenly be part of the opposition, will
have to figure out how to swim in that big pond. I know that sounds all Hallmark card and maybe
Robert Frost (Frankie always told me I misunderstood Frost, that he was a tough
old bird, that he was real), and I don’t mean it as trite: I mean those kids
don’t know they’re going to have to compromise their souls in some ways, that
people are going to betray them, that it’s going to hurt like hell and no
amount of grand illusions is going to fix it.
But that’s them, right now, and this is us, right now, “ancient” to them,
part of the world’s awfulness they’ve been immune to.
Us
and them, the individuals change, but the parameters don’t: you find yourself
stepping over the line or you look up one day and you’re on the other
side. But as for the sides? No. They
don’t change. It's a prism and when you
hold it to the light you see the progression of colors. That doesn't mean anything changes except the
angles, the perspective. Those kids in
the hall don't realize we slept in the same dorms, bought our vodka at the same
liquor store. It was called Jim’s
Liquors then, not Chestertown Liquors, and not what it’ll be called twenty
years from now, but the sign’s the only thing that changed. The vodka is on the same damn shelf,
even. Same with the kids—they look a
little different with their crew cuts and their pierced eyebrows; in 2033 at
their Big Two-Oh, they’ll be the old timers. Hell, and we’ll be primeval by then.
I left word
at the diner and the alumni house about the accident, and anytime now I expect
Rudy and Liz and the rest to come in. So
I’ll sit with this notepad I bought at the gift shop and wait, and chase away
lurkers. Frankie’d call it “ironic” that
I’ve turned in my formulas for words this time.
Late at night when he’d be working on a story, I’d tell him all art is
narcissism, with writers being the worst of the lot: oh, fill me with your
words, great poets. He’d grin and say,
“Go try and save the world with your science, Sport. We’ll see.”
And I want to say back to him, the pretend him in my mind, “Yeah? Go save the world with your Robert
Frost.” Not fair, I know, but I don’t
feel like being fair just now.
When
we were in college we wanted to save the world, all of us, but the world—which
doesn’t want saving at all—has come down hard.
RED
Frankie
wore his red hair long then, and a large, tattered cowboy hat with three
feathers in it, a contrast to the nineties' yuppie-lawyer look of a small East
Coast college. Frankie was grunge before
grunge was cool. When he walked into the
dorm room that first day, with the hair and the hat and a duffle bag over one
shoulder, my mother was captivated. Her
eyebrows twitched and she said, “We're Dave's parents, you must be Franklin—my, what
gorgeous hair!” Well, my folks are from
the Woodstock
era, right, so to them he must’ve look like some red-haired Jim Morrison. “Thanks,”
he grinned. His gaze swept the room,
categorized me, my parents, the boxes.
He leaned against the desk I'd claimed with Bonnie’s picture, cocked his
head as my mother went on about how she'd always wanted red-haired, freckle-cheeked
children, how my sister and I had sorely disappointed her by turning out
blonde. He smiled as if he found her
charming—my mother, for God's sake—and said, “At least he's a sharp
dresser.” I'd done the one-color thing:
shirt, vest, and tie of exactly the same maroon. On the way here, my father had muttered that
I looked like a pizza parlor waiter. He
now laughed vigorously. And I hated
Frankie.
At
last my parents left. Frankie leaned
across the desk, staring at the picture.
“That's
Bonnie,” I said, “My steady. If you
wanted that desk --”
“She's
cute,” he said, and tilted the picture to its original position. “You engaged
or what?”
I
laughed. “No.”
“Then
why the picture?” His arched brows
disappeared under the hat.
“Well,
she's... I...”
“Look,
Sport, you don't want girls seeing an eight-by-ten of the girl back home,
right? You'll never get laid that way.”
“I...”
“Here,”
he opened the bottom desk drawer and deposited the picture. “Take it out when Bonnie visits. Want a beer?
I passed three bars on my way into town.” He flipped a penny in the air and for an
instant the copper gleamed red in the dim light, and then disappeared in his
palm. “Let's go.” ~ ~ ~
Now
it’s nearly two in the afternoon and I can see from the window the big barbecue
gathering on the college lawn. The
doctors made me leave, examined him, then called me back in to say it’s three
broken ribs and a cut on the forehead, now with twenty-two stitches in it. They set the ribs, gave him pain killers and
want to hold him twenty-four hours, but they’re expecting him to be fine. They said the girl down the hall has a broken
leg and will have a serious hangover, in their own way hinting that it’s likely
no charges should be filed. Fine, then,
part of me wants to sling him over my shoulder and carry him across the lawn to
the barbecue.
In
the old days, we’d have done it. Rudy
would’ve helped me carry him. To hell
with their precautions, we’d say. “Never
trust anyone over thirty” was our motto.
And the thing is—and I know this even as I’m sitting here—the doctors
and nurses would prefer it that way, prefer just to have one more empty
bed. I also know that I won’t do it, now
that I’m a decade over thirty.
Still… I
keep waiting for the gang to show up.
It's a dreamy notion, but maybe when Liz arrives, Frankie’ll come
around. Even if she brings Brent,
Frankie will ignore him, just as it never bothered him she was Brent’s
steady. “Keeps me from having to make
any kind of foolish promises,” he'd say.
None of us thought less of Liz because she was officially Brent’s girl
but also Frankie’s lover; it all seemed to make sense, somehow. It was a weird time, I guess.
Outside
it's brightly May, the sun glowing on the white dome of Bill Smith Hall, symbol
of our alma mater. Within the hives of dorms, the members of the Class of 2013 hold their
breath in anticipation of their graduation day tomorrow. They have no idea that twenty years can
suddenly evaporate.ORANGE
Frankie
and I stayed roommates through college.
He never seemed to lose—not with women, not with professors, not even on
the basketball court though he was only 5'10”.
We were a tight group, but all types gravitated to Frankie and there was
always someone new dropping by the room.
He'd introduce me as “Dave, the Physics major,” as if that described my
inner soul.
Physics was
his only downfall. Senior year they told
him he needed three science credits to graduate, and Physics 101 was the only
open course. We tried to cheer him up
but he shrugged us off, went out and bought six bottles of peach schnapps,
invited over a bunch of his literary buddies.
That night, they organized a satirical magazine. “This'll get ‘em,” he told me at three that
morning. Outside, the Phi-Sigma-Deltas
had built a bonfire and the reflections of flames played orange tag against Frankie's
cowboy hat on its nail and my Blind Melon poster.
I
said to him, “You can’t hate physics. It’s
the way the world moves, the physical laws that run the universe. There's something mystical about that.”
“Mystical,
hell,” he said.
I told him
I'd help him through the course, just as he'd helped me through “An In-Depth
Critical Study of Medieval Literature,” a course that was supposed to be "in
English," but as far as I could tell it wasn’t. The professor told me just to keep reading
it, and to read it out loud, and nothing worked. Frankie tried to explain it, then showed me
where to find the Canterbury Tales translation.~ ~ ~ Now
it’s nearly four p.m. The nurse comes in, a cute girl, and assures
me that my brother will be fine. But
the weird part is, she brings in this pot of daffodils with a card that says,
“WE LOVE YA, FRANK. GET WELL! --Sanchez, Rudy & Anne, Tommy, Liz &
Brent.” So they’ve heard about the
accident—which means they’re in town—and they sent flowers? I mean, we’re
so close I could throw the pot of flowers out the window and probably hit the damned alumni house.
Could be
I'm paranoid, that everybody's just getting into town. Liz would know that daffodils are Frankie's favorite. I have this memory of watching him go up the
fire escape to her room, Romeo-like, a bunch of daffodils and a bottle of white
wine sticking out of the top of his backpack.
They're probably planning to come up after dinner, and maybe everyone
will come in one big group.
I
can never think of the dorms in past tense when I drive by. I expect to see Rudy and Tommy playing
frisbee on the roof, or Sanchez leaning against the yellowing columns, waiting
for winter so we can get out our skates and sneak down to the pond at midnight. Beyond the dorms, on the lacrosse field,
Brent's scoring a zillion goals while Frankie and I are clapping and shouting
like everyone else, but also rolling our eyes at each other.YELLOW
Everything
happened quickly after we graduated. It
was ‘92 and there weren’t any real jobs, so we all scrambled to pay the monthly
student loan bills and find a way to live.
Things I’d assumed would happen got all screwed up, like that Liz and
Frankie would get married. It hadn't
mattered their relationship was “secret,” with Liz moving in with Brent and
Frankie getting a big MFA fellowship to the U of Michigan. Things would work out, we thought. I did, at least. Fate would work it that Frankie got the girl
and all would be well. When he called me
a year after graduation to say he was getting married, I asked if they planned
to use the college lounge like Jill and
Don. “Who?” he asked.
“What college?”
“'What
college?' Isn't it--? Oh,” I said. She
was someone he'd met in a graduate class, “a real babe.” He asked me to be Best Man, so I did. Frankie stood at the altar, slick as ever,
with this Janice beside him. She was
pretty, and when I talked to her afterwards she seemed nice, but something was
wrong. “Tell me how you first met Frankie,” I said, “He makes one helluva first
impression, huh?” I poured her
champagne.
“Oh? We met in class, I suppose. After class.
We had lunch and he seemed very sweet.”I
overfilled her glass and champagne foamed on the floor, a pale yellow splash
against linoleum. She'd just married our
Frankie. Sweet?
I
saw him the next summer, in Chicago. I had business there for the lab, and he was
teaching at a writing seminar. We met at
a bar. Sanchez had said she'd seen some
of his Facebook posts and he seemed down.
She said she messaged him, not a personal conversation, just 'are-you-doing-okay-what’s-up'
sort of thing, and he said he was okay.
But Sanchez was always good at sensing if something was going on. So I asked him that day, “How's Janice?” I asked him.
“Great.” The beers arrived. He slipped his fingers through the handle and
hoisted the mug.
I
said, “Make the toast. You're the
writer.”
He
snorted. “You make the toast.”
“To
old times?” I lifted my mug.
He
cocked his head, looked at me like he didn't recognize me. With that look still in his eyes, he
smiled. “Why not,” he said, and the mugs
clinked together. Foam dripped down the
sides.~ ~ ~
It’s
after six p.m. now. Frankie woke up a little while ago, and we
talked. Maybe I don’t understand him at
all. Maybe I never did. I know I'm not being objective; the
scientific coolness I have at work has evaporated. I don't know if anything I remember is
true. Christ, I wish they'd show
up. What I'd give to see Sanchez right
about now. I'd almost settle for Brent.
I
looked up from this and he was staring at me.
“Now I'm worried,” he said, his voice strained. “I wake up in a hospital
to find a scientist beside my bed taking notes.
What, have they listed my organs on eBay?” He didn't smile, but he looked sort of impish. “What are you writing?”
“Nothing. Doodling,” I said.
The slim
circle of green around his pupils looked washed-out. I remembered his eyes as clover-coloredbut
now it was like the clover had burned dry under a hot sun. “How's the girl?” he asked, “The one I hit.”
“Broken
leg,” I said, “No big deal… you were both lucky.”
“Lucky, you call it.”
“Hey,” I
said, “Look who sent you flowers.”
He
glanced at them. “Was it Aussie? Is she here?”
Aussie
is his latest girl, someone he met in Chicago—a
“performance artist,” young, maybe twenty-two. “No, they're from the gang”
“The
gang.” He pursed his lips.
“Everyone's
coming by in a bit. Liz and
everybody. You've got to get fired up,
be ol' knock-‘em-dead Frankie.” He
didn’t answer. “Come on. What’s the Big Two-Oh without Frankie
boy?” He grunted, said nothing. “So why'd you come, if you’re going to be a
jerk about it?”
“No
idea. But it sure looks like a bad
decision.”
“I got
it. Fate had you wreck the car. It all means you should’ve stayed in Chicago. And no one cares if they see you anyway. I guess that makes me the jerk.”
Then
he got a funny look and I thought I’d gotten through to him, like I’d made some
big impression, hit some stroke of wisdom.
“I’m sick,” he said, “Bet they gave me codeine.” He touched the bandage on his forehead with
two fingers, spoke slowly, “Sorry if I’m bringing you down, but I don’t see it
like you do. The college wants our
money, as usual. And Alums show up to compare
notes, like checking the papers after a horse race.”
“How can
you say that about Rudy and Sanchez? Or
about me?”
“Not you,”
he said.
“The
others, then. They sent you these nice
flowers. They’ll be here any minute.”
“When their
Aunt Martha in Tampa
dies they send flowers then, too.”
“Stop it,”
I said.
“Okay...”
he said. “Have things your way,” he
spoke slower and slower. “You always
were a kind of conscience for everyone.”
He closed his eyes, and his breathing deepened.
I've
been watching him sleep since then. He
hasn’t moved. Frankie, we were eighteen
when we met and now we're looking at forty, and somehow you never seemed as
young as you do here. Even when you
slept you were invulnerable, smirking, having your own dreams in your own head
and damn it nobody better wake you up.
Then you'd get up and saunter off to the shower, and, still smirking, go
off to class. Solid. Compact, like the pit bulldog you now own.
Now
you say it’s like checking the papers after a horse race. Frankie, wake up, damn you. Wake up and listen to me. GREENIt’s
nearly seven now, dusk. I went to the
snack machine and got pretzels. The
college kids are gone, the nurses nearly comatose at their station. No sign of the crew. I've been thinking about what he said about
me as the “conscience” for everybody. I
keep thinking about the last time I saw Sanchez, a few years ago,
Christmas. She called me at work, asked
if we could meet on South Street. She spoke softly and in measured syllables,
so I knew she was in some kind of trouble.I
was waiting on the corner when she got out of the cab, and for a moment she
didn't see me. She looked like a
runaway, standing there in a khaki coat with mascara running down her cheeks. After we hugged I put my arm around her and
led her to Andre's, steered her to a corner booth. She took out a cigarette case and offered me
one. I stared; the only fight we'd ever
had was once when she threw out my cigarettes because she didn't want me to
“ruin my lungs and et-cetera.” I'd quit
several years later, when I got married, because Bonnie didn't like the
smell. I took the cigarette, when she
offered, and inhaled deeply as she lit it.
“So,” I said, “You okay?”“Frankie's
at my apartment,” she said, each syllable distinct.

“Go
on.”
She
put her hand on the side of her face.
The line of mascara smeared, the green eye shadow distinct. “Davie,
I don't know what to do.”
I
reached across to touch her hand. “What
happened?”
“He
just showed up last night. There was a
knock. I opened the door. He hugged me.
And ... so… He stayed.”
“I
see.”
“I
don't know what to do. I never know what
to do. It's always the wrong thing.”
“What
do you mean?”
“He…
I guess he just needed someone to talk to and et-cetera.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Then
things got—he's separated from Janice, did you know?” She sniffled and began rooting through her
purse for a tissue.
“No.”
“Well,
you can surmise what happened between us and et-cetera.”
“Okay. Things happen.”
“No
they don't.” Her eyes were fierce beneath
the moth-like green. “They don't 'just happen' to me. Not with him, at any rate. Do you know how long I've been in love with
him?”I
choked on the cigarette, couldn't stop coughing. My eyes watered. The waitress brought two
glasses of water. Sanchez ordered
coffees. I
recovered. “Sorry,” I said, “Haven't
smoked in awhile.”
“It's
okay.”
“You
were saying I didn't know how long you've been in love with Frankie.”
“Do
you?”
“No.”
“Always,”
she said, “Since you introduced me. The bastard. He never looked twice at me, was always
panting after some Barbie, but that didn't stop me from planning. Frankie and I were going to be the talk of
the campus. I heard them like a movie in
my head, 'campus stud goes steady with little Brazilian girl that no one else
wants.'““That's
ridiculous,” I said, “You had plenty of boyfriends.”
“The
freaks, that's all. The ones who
couldn't get anyone else to go out with them.
I was prime game for the freak set.”
I looked at
the sugar bowl because I didn’t want her to know what I was thinking. I’d been the first one to ask her out, the
one who’d taken her to the Freshmen Ball.
“So Frankie’s at your apartment.
Isn’t that good?”
The
waitress brought the coffees and Sanchez sipped hers. “It was a long time ago,” she said. “College
was a long time ago. When he never
bothered with me and just went his jolly way, I bounced back. Had to.
I even started to like him a little, thinking he had plenty of chances
to take advantage of my affections but didn’t because he was noble, or
something. Then I started to wonder if
maybe I wasn’t good enough, even for that, and et-cetera. Do you see?”
“Sure,”
I said, though I didn’t. I doubted that
Frankie had even considered sleeping with Sanchez then. She was like a kid sister to him. And that wasn’t because she was Brazilian.
“Now
I don’t know what to think. He finally
did come back to take advantage of me, always knew I was waiting around, just
didn’t get desperate enough to follow it up until last night.”
“Take
advantage of you? Come on, Sanchez, what
happened to the new millennium all of a sudden?” The world, it seemed, had gotten darker.
She
sniffled. “I know. You think I don’t know? I only came to tell you how I feel, not what
I think—“
“Sorry,”
I said, touching her hand again. “I’m a
pretty piss-poor confidante, huh?”
“It’s
okay,” she said. “I’m imposing. I know how close you and Frankie were. I don’t know what to do. He woke up this morning and asked me to make
him breakfast. Can you imagine?”
“And
did you?”
She
blew her nose and nodded. “Yeah. I did.”
Then she was crying, her chest moving in little spasms, tears making
dark spots on the tablecloth. I reached
across and hugged her, and we hugged for a long time. I didn’t know what to tell her. Frankie took what he wanted and expected that
everyone else did the same, and I don’t think he ever considered the fact that
someone might follow his lead out of loyalty or love or anything else. ~ ~ ~I
sound angry about that and I am, though I don’t mean to be. I’m jealous, probably. I had a terrible crush on her once. Anyway, I haven’t talked with her since then,
though we comment on each other’s Facebook posts. I never mentioned it to Frankie, either.
I
hope they decide to show. Not so much
for Frankie, really; I need to know he’s wrong, that it isn’t a horse race, and
that something survives. I’m staking a
lot on this, damn right. And if they let
me down I’ll never forgive them.
Now
it’s eight p.m. and napkins
like small white flags flutter in the dark of the campus lawn. Through the open windows, I hear shouts and
laughter, the beeping of horns. This is
their last night, their last hurrah.
Only the small fluorescent light
over Frankie's bed is on. It casts a
pale blue on the walls and sheets, like shadows across snow. The veins in his hands are darker blue. In here, the only sound is his
breathing. Aussie has arrived. She said she recognized me from photos. She said the hospital called her, that her cell
phone must still be listed as an emergency number in his wallet. The qualifier “still” stopped me, so other
than that, we haven't spoken, are sitting vigilant watch on either side of his
bed. It's funny-- I didn't realize how
young she is. He called her his
“babe.” Babethe Blue Ox comes to
mind, for no good reason at all, because she’s perfectly beautiful.
She’s
a perfectly beautiful young woman who could be my daughter, for God’s sake, or
Frankie’s daughter or one of those Zeta Tau Alphas who will tomorrow hand out
the Graduation programs. That shouldn’t
matter. My college self would be
appalled at me for thinking this way--just
because people are different ages, that doesn’t mean… Yeah, you think that
way when you’re twenty. By the time
you’re forty, if you’ve lived life at all, you see all the things that the
twenty-year-olds can’t see yet. Nothing
against them: they just can’t see it yet. But Frankie mumbles in his sleep and I guess
he doesn’t care what she sees yet or what she doesn’t see. BLUEThe last time I saw Frankie was a year ago, at
his house in Connecticut,
and he was living with Aussie at that point, but she was on tour. He wore a navy-colored work shirt and jeans,
and it was a breezy October day. We sat
on his back porch and sipped brandy. He
told me about his teaching position, read me the reviews of his latest book of
poetry, good ones and bad ones, and we laughed about both. I showed him wallet photos of Bonnie and the
kids, and he told me about Aussie's latest show, something about Poseidon and our
water-births, whatever that means. We
laughed about it and it was all strangely middle-aged, like we were part of
things but at the same time like we were just playing. I didn't really have two kids; he wasn't
really living with a twenty-two-year-old performance artist. “This is not real,” I said.
He
nodded. “Right. We're on the dorm roof, it’s May of ’92 with
BOC blaring across the quad, and we’re drunk on vodka, predicting what life
will be like when we’re middle aged.
What do you think of our predictions?”
I
looked around the porch. “I didn't
really expect to end up with Bonnie. And
I always thought you'd be with Liz.”
From the objective viewpoint of my past, the present seemed very odd.
“Well,”
he said, placing the glass ashtray on his knee and gazing down like it was a
crystal ball. All I saw was a
magnification of his jeans. “Sorry,
friend, but that's what the Fates tell me.
You'll marry your high school sweetheart and I, after a brief and
painless marriage to someone named 'Janet'—no, wait a minute—'Janice,' end up
with a real babe.” My cheeks were warm
from the brandy, and a cool wind blew across the porch. He laughed, and slapped his hands on his
knees, and refilled our glasses.~ ~ ~
Right,
and here we are in current reality, with Washington College
across the street and me here looking out at it. You ever have one of those times when you’re
looking at something and you’re in the past but you’re also in the present and
somehow you don’t get them separated?
Or, maybe when you do get them separated it gives you kind of a sick
feeling? I’m not good at this kind of
stuff. I like my job, I like chemical
compounds—I like the way they’re predictable and that even when they aren’t,
you can figure out why they aren’t and it makes sense.
There's
been no word from the others. I should
call the alumni house and see if they've checked in. But I can't do it. “I need some air,” she just said to me. “Me too,” I said, and we’re out of here. INDIGONow
it’s nearly ten and we’re back, nothing accomplished except now we know why we
haven’t been speaking to each other; now it’s settled and there’s no need to
try. Outside, walking across campus with
her, the night was moist and warm, the smell of mown grass heavy, the rigid
little silhouettes of the graduation chairs in their rows. We walked over to the statue of George
Washington, beside a statue that I once covered with toilet paper, his shadowed
features oddly indigo in this light. “Aussie,”
I asked her as we sat there, “What's happened to him?”
She
nudged the acorns with her toe. “I'm not
sure. His uncle died. He couldn't write. He wouldn't talk to me. I tried to tell him how I felt, but he'd only
walk away. I encouraged him to come to
this reunion... to 'find his roots' or something. He refused.
This Monday, I moved in with a friend for a while.”
The
band over the hill, hired by the Class of ‘82 (here for, good God, their thirtieth
reunion), started playing “Galileo.” On
a hunch, I asked, “That friend—was it a man or a woman?”
She
jumped a little. “What difference does that make?”
“It
does,” I said, feeling old.
“Just
leave me alone.”
So
now we’re back in the hospital room. I'm
tired and have no idea why I'm sitting here not talking to Frankie's former
girlfriend, who has an earring in her tongue—in her tongue, for God’s
sake. She’s a kid; she’s like the kids
still going to school here, could jump up and run across the quad and fit right
in. But she’s come to see Frankie who,
like me, is now "old" or at least not young.
Not young enough for earrings in our tongues and backward baseball
caps—and I’m glad about that. I wish I'd
tried harder to convince Bonnie and the kids to come, that we were like the
rest of the old farts, on the lawn waiting for the Class of '62's fireworks. 1962.
God.
I'm
going to find the others. I'll stop by
the liquor store on my way. The desire
for a drink has stirred a thought that we didn't always get the vodka because
we wanted to have a good time. Often
life was crazy and frustrating and we were trying to get away from it, and
tipping the bottle eased the lurkers into shadow. Like now.~ ~ ~
I'm
alone in Sanchez's hotel room. I can
hear them yelling next door. The vodka
churns, the room spins, dark drapes with ridiculous purple flowers jiggling on
the periphery of my vision. Writing
words keeps it steadier. Around my eye,
the skin stings and throbs. I'll never
be able to read this and I don't care.
The
Alumni House told me they were here. We
used to make jokes about this cheap hotel and its hourly rates.
Rudy
got a perm, Sanchez lost weight and looks sleek, Brent's finally grown into his
nose, Anne said they'd been waiting for me.
Kids everywhere. And Liz looks
the same, the same as she did twenty years ago.
Sanchez
asked about my kids. Rudy told me about
his new job at U.S.A. Today. They were
drinking blackberry brandy. I was drunk
when I got here and wanted to keep drinking and catch up on their news. But Frankie's in the hospital down the
street, and they sent daffodils like they would if Aunt Matilda in Miami died. I whispered, “Where have you been?”
Only Liz
heard me. Very softly, she asked, “How
is he?”
Rudy
was still talking about his job, Sanchez about the law firm, Anne about how
Tommy couldn't make it, Brent about some trip to Bermuda... “Frankie,” I began sharply, “is down the road
in the freaking hospital.”
Anne
mentioned the flowers. Rudy said they'd
expected me at the barbecue. Sanchez
wanted to know if he'd been charged with reckless driving. “It's all right that you didn't think to
come,” I said, “You can come now. We can
all go now.” I leaned on Liz's shoulder
and waited for them to go into action, for Sanchez to say, “Let's hit it,” for
Rudy to ask what cars we'd take, for Anne to be ignored when she wondered if
this would be allowed. I waited and cars
rushed by the window, headlights flashing in the dark, then gone.
At
last Rudy said, “When we called they said 'no visitors.'“
“So?”
I said, “Who cares what they say?”
“I
care,” said Brent.
“Who
cares what you say?”
“Wait,”
Liz said, “Stop it. Dave, Brent...”
Brent
took a step closer. “We're supposed to
be falling over ourselves to run see Frankie, huh? 'Cause, if it wasn't for Frankie the world
would stop spinning!”
The
vodka pulsed through me. I addressed the
others, not Brent. “I come here and find
you all having a party while Frankie's in the hospital saying that nothing
matters.”
“Dear
Jesus,” Brent laughed and put his hand over his heart, “Saying that nothing
matters! This is sweet!
I thought this reunion was going to be dull, but, dude--”
No
one challenged this, not even Liz. Not
even Sanchez. I lunged at him,
swinging. I aimed and swung and missed
entirely, dweeb that I am and have always been.
Something like a rock slammed into the side of my face and I landed
hard. Someone helped me up, and I
thought, just point me in his direction and I’ll go at the bastard again, but I
realized it was Sanchez and she was taking me away, into another room while the
rest of them yelled at one another.
She brought
me a towel with ice in it. I could smell
her perfume, like violets. The ice
stung. “Frankie says it’s all a horse
race,” I said.
“Uh
huh.”
“Do
you think it’s a horse race?”
“To
some degree, it’s always been a horse race.
That’s not news, and I’m sorry for Frankie if he’s just now figuring
that out and et-cetera.” She folded her
hands on her lap.
“What
the hell does that mean? This is Frankie
we're talking about. Remember?”
“I
remember.” She placed her hand on mine
and shifted the ice back over my eye.
“Come
with me,” I said, “Now. To the
hospital. Frankie would be there if it were
you.”
“No
he wouldn't,” she said, evenly. “He
wouldn't.”VIOLETAt
graduation, we all said we wouldn't change.
We'd keep our souls intact and conquer the world. Diplomas held like swords, we hugged and the
sunshine gleamed purple on our robes.
Nothing would change. I'm
laughing as I write this. It's a sick
laugh. The bruise around my eye is
starting to color. Why did I believe
it? Why didn't I see that something else
would take over? The college, the liquor
store, this hotel, have stayed behind, but they're no longer connected to me. I can't reach them even when I try. Someone else plays frisbee on the roof. Someone else stands in the check-out line
with three cans of Hawaiian Punch. And
they’re going to get old, too.
You
were right, Frankie. As always. ~ ~ ~
I
went back to Frankie's hospital room. On
the way down the hall, I saw Aussie asleep in the lounge. I was still drunk and considered waking her,
but I had no idea what I'd say. I kept
going. The nurse's station was empty,
and the clock said 4:30 a.m.
Frankie
was sleeping. I pulled the chair up to
the window and sat with my back to him.
I waited for the sky to lighten, wondered if this was what all-nighters
were like. I'd been one of those
students who finished papers days early.
Frankie'd laugh and say that it’s the moment before dawn when the genius
pours out. I sat in his hospital room and
waited for the genius to pour out. I was
almost convinced, as I sat there rubbing my black eye, that a moment of
inspiration would hit me, and everything would click into perspective. Nothing happened.
The
sky turned grey, then violet, and still nothing happened. The silhouette of the college dome appeared
as it did every morning whether I lived or died. I considered calling Bonnie, but didn't know
what to say. She’d ask how the barbecue
was, and I didn’t want to explain that Dave the dweeb sat in the hospital all
night. Brief excursion to the hotel resulting in a black eye. Stupid.
When
Frankie said, “You're still here,” I jumped, but didn't turn. “Been here all night?”
I
tried to speak, but squeaked instead, so cleared my throat. “They aren’t
coming,” I said. I thought about being
more dramatic, like picking up the pot of daffodils and hurling it at him. “Uh
huh,” he said.
“Say
you told me so. Go ahead.” I turned around. They’d removed the bandage, left a line of
stitches.
“Holy
God, where’d you get the shiner, Sport?”
His eyebrows shot up and he was grinning.
I
turned back to the window. “I was an
asshole,” I said, “Like you used to be.”
He
laughed. “Fun, huh?”I
didn’t answer. My eyes started to sting,
and I thought—damn, I’m not going to cry, am I?
Poor deluded, nostalgic Dave... poor Dave who liked the little Brazilian
girl? Dave the man in the lab coat who
comes home to his high school sweetheart and two kids? I bit my lip, and focused on the streak of
white jet smoke inching across the lavender sky.
“Hey...?”
he asked. “You hanging in there?”
“Sure,”
I said, “Like you.” My throat squeezed
against my windpipe and I had to breathe fast.
“Look, the horse race is over.
All of us lost. You want me to
give you the run down on how everyone’s doing—Rudy, Liz and the rest, or do you
want to wait and read it in the alumni rag?”
Frankie asked, “You saw them,
then? Lizzy and all of them?”
I
nodded. “Rudy has a job with ‘U.S. News
and World Report.’““’U.S.A. Today.’“
“So
how do you know?”
“I
keep up,” he said softly.
“Like
horse races.”
“No.”
“Because
it’s interesting trivia. You can use us
in your books.”
“No.”
I
shrugged. It was time to go. “Sorry about your car.” I started to tell him I’d have Bonnie send flowers when I got home, but I didn’t.
“Well... None of it matters, after all.”
“I
know that.” Two girls were adding more
graduation chairs to the campus lawn.
“Let
me finish,” he said, “Maybe it’s you that’s changed. Did you think of that, Sport?”“Everything
changes, nothing changes. So what. Don’t call me ‘Sport,’“ I said. The girls were laughing in the sunshine.
“It
was you who kept ‘the crew’ together.
You were there at the heart of it, not me. It was always you.” I snorted and turned to face him so he’d see
I wasn’t being taken in by his crap, and that pathetic ‘Sport’ no longer
existed. He went on, “Wasn’t it you who
first dated Sanchez when she was too shy to speak to anyone? You were my Best Man. You were Rudy and Anne’s Best Man.”
I
held his gaze without blinking. “What
happened with Sanchez?”
“With
Sanchez?”
“After
you slept with her. What happened?”
He
cleared his throat. “I guess I put on my
pants and went home. What would you have
done, married her?”
“Possibly.”
“So
why didn’t you?”
“Me? Not me.
I’m just the freak who comes along to save the day.” “You
have more sense, more decency, than the rest of us. If that makes you a freak…”“Yeah,”
I said. “It does. It always did. I’m the only one who didn’t see myself that
way.”
“Look,
Spor—uh, Dave—I wouldn’t have graduated if hadn’t been for you. The others were nice, like daffodils are
nice, but if you hadn’t convinced Grimes to let me re-take that exam, the
fellowship to Michigan
would’ve gone straight down the toilet.
You held my hand for a week while I tried to learn that crap.” The line of stitches furrowed and
straightened, and he seemed to be waiting for my permission to go on. I shrugged and he continued. “I never did get the bit about ‘ultraviolet
light breaking down atomic bombs,’ or whatever it was.”
I
smiled, despite myself. “’...breaking
down molecular bonds.’“
“Right. And that stupid textbook, ‘The Good Earth as
Man—‘“
“’The
Natural World as Man Knows It.’ You kept calling it ‘The Natural Girl as Man
Knows Her.’ Said you were going to title
your first book after it.”
“Must’ve
slipped my mind.”
None
of this nostalgia changed anything. “Now
we do sound like old college farts at the Big Two-Oh,” I said, “Hooray.”
“That’s
pretty bad, you think?”
“It’s
bad,” I said.
He
cocked his head at me, rubbed his chin.
“That ultraviolet light, what does it do again?”
I
answered mechanically, “Breaks the molecular bonds between atoms, which allows
them to combine in different ways, to become new things.”
“And
this is good?”
“Of
course. It’s the way the universe moves,
and part of how it changes, and without ch—”
I stopped. I stared hard at him.
He
nodded, and looked down. “You know, I
really could use a cup of coffee, Dave.”
“Okay,”
I said. I needed one, too.
There
was a knock at the door. Aussie peeked
in. “I see the old bear’s awake. I’ve
brought you a present, Franklin.”
“I’m
in trouble,” he said to me, and winked.
Aussie
entered, with Liz in tow. “What have you
done to yourself this time?” Liz
asked. She went to the bed and they
hugged tightly.
“Coffee?” I asked.
All three nodded.Walking
down the hall, I could still hear them talking and laughing. As I turned down the corner, I nearly bumped
into Rudy, who was trying to keep a bottle of blackberry brandy tucked in his
shirt. Anne smiled and before she asked
I said, “That way,” and pointed to the open door.
I
got lost trying to find the hospital cafeteria.
They have these colored lines on the floor, yellow and green and red and
blue, and you’re supposed to follow your line to get to where you want to
go. I kept looking down and my line
wasn’t there, and I’d have to retrace my steps until I found it again.
By
the time I got to the cafeteria, Rudy was there already, standing in line. “Wasn’t I fast enough for him?” I asked.
“They’ve
brought him oatmeal but he wants a real breakfast,” Rudy said, chuckling.
“What,
he thinks he can snap his fingers and someone will jump to get him breakfast?”
A
voice behind us said, “He’s serious about his breakfast.”
I
turned and Sanchez smiled at me, and we hugged.~ ~ ~
I'm
on the train home now. There will be
time and time again to think of these things.
For now, the lurkers have eased back into their shadows, and the sun
through the window has cast the spectrum on my page.

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